Dungeon Club Roll Call
Cover of Dungeon Club Roll Call. This features the 3 main characters of the Dungeon Club and their PCs within the D&D campaign.
D&D Dungeon Club: Roll Call is a lovely graphic novel created by author Molly Knox Ostertag and illustrated by Xanthe Bouma. The story talks about two middle school friends Olivia and Jess and their journey as they explore expanding their friendship as a D&D party of two. The story follows both the real world and the D&D campaign in the Forgotten Realms.
I enjoyed reading through Dungeon Club Roll Call. Middle school can be difficult and I think that this book does a good job for juvenile readers to touch on anxieties and emotions that those readers may have while attending middle school. It is also a good friendship book, showing that people can apologize and change.
I think one of the best things I enjoyed about this story is the incorporation of D&D as a social tool. It was the median used for friendships to grow and social/emotional development was able to happen thanks to the use of role play. If I had a character like Olivia when I went to middle school I would have totally joined her Dungeons & Dragons club.
The book was released Nov 28th, 2022 and is to be the first book in a series. I look forward to when the second book comes out, but for now you can check out some of her other work as well such as The Witch Boy or The Girl From the Sea. Check out her website here.
The details and colors are quite eye catching in this graphic novel. This is one of the sample pages my library had for this book. Xanthe Bouma's art was a definite boon to accompany Molly Ostertag's writing.